This way, that way

There are many things you do as a parent in the hopes of fun and creativity that come back to bite you in the rear when you least expect it.

Last Monday, a bunch of ice led to delayed federal government and daycare openings. And since Chad's sports car doesn't do anything on ice but slide around, we all carpooled to work together. Jackson's daycare didn't open until 11 and I had to be at the office for a meeting at 10:30. So Chad, wearing his creative parenting hat, decided to kill the half-hour in between by driving around the city and letting Jackson choose the direction in which they went. They had a jolly old time, and he thought it was hilarious.

Fast-forward to Tuesday. I picked Jackson up from school and he was ready to tell me how to get home. (Keep in mind he does know most of how to get places, and if you ever divert from that due to traffic or whatever else he'll start opining from the back seat: "Wrong way! Wrong way!")

In typical toddler fashion, Jackson wanted to take me on a joy ride when all I really wanted to do was get home from work. I swear he'd been planning this all day. And when I didn't oblige...here came the exasperation. The drama. The t-e-a-r-s! For the entire 45-minute drive home (because traffic is always particularly bad on the evenings your child decides to have a meltdown), Jackson was pointing and yelling, "Other way! Other waaay! I want other way!!!" ... except for the very rare occurrence when we were going to turn in the direction he was expecting.

I do love my child, but I could not get him to bed fast enough that night.

Fast forward to later that week, when I went out to lunch with a potential business partner. She mentioned that she had an 18-year-old son, and in the next breath talked about an upcoming vacation. I asked if she was bringing her son with her to the Caribbean. "No," she says. "He lives with his father. I don't see him. Sometimes he sends me a text."

I squinted my eyes and wrinkled my nose, which is what I always do when I'm trying to figure out if people are joking. She wasn't. I went on to hear about how there comes a time when your kids just don't want to spend time with you and that it comes faster than you think. Then I start thinking about how I could never in a million years imagine what I'd do if this happened to me. I might very well turn into a stalker.

After that uplifting conversation I counted the minutes until I went straight to daycare, and said a little "thank-you-and-I'm-sorry" prayer to the Man Upstairs when, at the sight of me, Jackson literally dropped everything he was doing and started jumping up and down with his daily exclamation of, "That's MY mama!" I was the highlight of his day, and he was mine.

I gave him an extra-long hug. And let him stay up late, too.